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Too often, we wait to start changing the world.Perhaps we feel too powerless, too busy, too far away, or too small. How can we—each of us just one person—change a world that is so vast and so broken?

Who more than Anne Frank witnessed the brokenness of the world? For over two years, she and her family were hidden from the Nazis until they were betrayed and deported to Bergen-Belsen, where she died at the age of fifteen. And yet, even amid those horrors, Anne understood the power of one person and one action. She was saved by individuals who improved one part of the world. And she was betrayed by individuals who further tarnished a part of the world.

Anne’s heartbreakingly hopeful words beseech us to break out of our inertia. Her words reassure us too. We can gradually change the world, not solve all

its problems at once. Her words remind us that one small voice yields enormous power, that one small act ricochets widely, inspiring another good act, then another. A hundred acts of a hundred different people become a thousand, then a hundred thousand. One small act can be like those rolling ball sculptures where a ball rolls down a ramp, strikes a lever that opens a door that activates a lift that rings a bell.

We can be one of those balls set in motion. One act changes the world. It changes us, too.

Tova Mirvis is the author of three novels, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary (a national best-seller). Her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Commentary, and Poets and Writers. Mirvis’s fiction has been broadcast on NPR, and she has served as a visiting scholar at Brandeis University. She holds a Master in Fine Arts in fiction writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Anne Frank was a German-Jewish teenager who continues to inspire the world through her diary which details her experiences in hiding during the Holocaust. Frank’s family hid for more than two years in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam. The family was later betrayed and deported to Nazi

concentration camps. She died in Bergen-Belsen at the young age of fifteen. Her diary shares a powerful message of courage and hope in the face of

adversity, and millions of copies have been printed in nearly seventy languages.

Asaf Hanuka is an Israeli cartoonist and illustrator. He studied at the French Emile Cohl School of Design and has received prestigious awards, including the Society of Illustrators’ Gold Medal, the Communication Arts’ Award of Excellence, and 3x3’ Silver Medal. He collaborated with his twin brother, Tomer, on the Bipolar comic series, and continues to document his own life in the weekly comic series, The Realist. Hanuka’s work has appeared in Time, Rolling Stone, The New York Times,The Source, and The Wall Street Journal.

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"How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world!"Anne Frank

How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world! How wonderful it is that everyone, great and small, can immediately help bring about justice by giving of themselves!...

Give and you will receive, much more than you ever thought possible. Give and give again. Keep hoping, keep trying, keep giving! People who give will never be poor!

If you follow this advice, within a few generations, people will never have to feel sorry for poor little beggar children again, because there won't be any! The world has plenty of room, riches, money and beauty. God has created enough for each and every one of us. Let us begin by dividing it more fairly!